Some random thoughts on this Monday morning...The report that there was yet another wrong-way crash along the same stretch of I-275 this weekend in Tampa is one of the most confounding stories I can recall in awhile. The fact that this happens even once is bizarre, but four times? In one year? A Highway Patrol spokesman says in all of these cases the driver did a U-turn while on the highway, so the idea of putting up warning lights on the entrances to the freeway or installing spike bars at the entrance and exits to the freeway to puncture the tires of wrong-way drivers don't make sense — if in fact these cars are going on the road the right way and then turning around. The more I think about it, the less likely I believe that actually these cars are turning around. But that's what what the FHP says, so...In this space on Friday I expressed a tad of incredulity that some top "experts" were predicting the Tampa Bay Bucs to not only be an improved team this year, but actually win the NFC South division. After watching the Josh McCown-led team lay a prodigious egg last night, however, I'm thinking, what do Boomer Esiason, Mike Greenberg and Sports Illustrated know that I'm missing? A lot of these same experts say Carolina won't be as good as they were a year ago, but I ain't buying it. (And those other teams in the Bucs division — Atlanta and New Orleans, for instance — also don't look like they'll finish behind Tampa Bay this year).
President Obama was on the Chuck Todd debut of Meet The Press yesterday, and spoke about how he's going to address the leaders in Congress and the American people (on Wednesday) to outline the strategy that he was blasting last week for not having regarding how to contend with ISIS (or ISIL, as the president refers to the gang of Islamic terrorists in Iraq and Syria). According to the New York Times, destroying ISIS may take up to three years to accomplish.
Hmmm. Let's see how courageous our members of Congress are this week about actually voting for military action.
Many members talk up a good game about how the president needs to come to them for authorization, but the fact is just as many (if not more) seem to be quite content in not having to be held accountable to committing U.S. troops to war, though we don't even know how many troops we're talking about at this point. House Speaker John Boehner tells the Wall Street Journal that the president has the power to order airstrikes in Iraq but says it's "questionable whether he has the authority to do this in Syria." Which means since most Republicans have sounded off that the U.S. needs to attack ISIS in Syria, that Boehner should call for that authorization, right? Will he? (Bill Nelson has such a bill he's introduced in the Senate).
In other news — if you didn't see it this weekend, please read my take on the Adam Goodman-Steve Schale discussion about the governor's race and Amendment Two posted on Saturday.
CL's Terrence Smith covered that Tiger Bay debate on Friday between some Pinellas County House candidates....
And while Barack Obama was sitting down on Meet The Press,Mitt Romney was over on Fox News Sunday denying that he will run for president again, though he said he'd be a way better president than Hillary Clinton.